Monday, July 20

I know I've already said this about Mt. Rushmore, but if you haven't seen the Rockies, they are simply incredible - you must see them. You drive along all these plains, and suddenly, you see them; they're monoliths of stone, spearing the sky with their sharp peaks, some still covered with snow. Supposedly, you can see bighorn sheep all around . . . if you look hard enough. We have not seen any just yet, but we will soon enough, I'm sure about it. We visited Colorado State today, home of Dad's studies and degrees. It really is a beautiful campus, with elm trees across the grounds, friendly students and alumni all 'round, greeting us and giving us information, when we asked. However, Dad says that the campus is so different than when he attended. He says it's changed for the better, though. You won't believe what happened today. When we visited the cafeteria, we met an alumnus of CSU who graduated in '92. Guess where he lived? Raleigh, North Carolina. He saw Philip's Raleigh Troop 215 t-shirt and spoke up. First the couple from Denmark, now a CSU grad student from Raleigh who just happened to visit his old campus on the same day, of the same month, in the same year that we did!!! Anyway, we got on the road to where we are now at about 1:00 Mountain time, as we only had about 40 or 50 miles to travel to Estes Park. We will be staying in Estes Park for about three nights, then we'll travel to Buena Vista, where we'll stay for four. We'll have roughly seven days of down time in the Rockies. We arrived in Estes at about 2:45. That left us with quite a bit of time to relax, which was a great gift. So, here I am, writing the blog, waiting for the days to bear some fruit. Oh! I forgot to write the closing in a foreign language yesterday. Therefore, here is the "goodbye and goodnight" in Greek: Αντίο και καλή νύχτα!